China-Goverment-Growing - 14/07/2003, tatiana saphir,
buenos airesI like the topics you choose to describe any world power desire: to be the center.
For me, for the sort of image we have of China, it's a country with an imposible number of people that grows and grows, and a taugh goverment.
I don't know what "Argentina" means, but I think about "argent" (in french is "silver"). I'll try to find out a bit...

I wanted to respond to 2ye Bao's observation that the "Chinese always believe that they are the governor of the world."
In fact, during a period roughly equivalent to the European Renaissance China was probably the world's Superpower, alongside India at about the same time.
One of the expressions of its great intellectual achievment under the Ming Dynasty was the epic adventures of the Admiral Zheng He (1371-1433). He is widely known in China and Pacific Rim but in the West his name is likely to get a quizzical expression. We are far more familiar with Columbus, Da Gama and Magellan, but the accomplishments of Zheng He--perhaps the first modern Mutationist--are astounding. Zheng He was a Chinese Muslim eunuch, a captive who became a servant and a great leader of men.
Zheng He commanded a kind of a Chinese equivalent of Star Trek's "Enterprise." His missions were primarily of exploration and knowledge. With a team of diplomats and linquists, Zheng He traveled far and wide bearing gifts to new civilizations. They did not conquer, but they brought back to China zebras and camels.
How would the world have been changed had the Ming Chinese been more aggressive--or rather, Western--in their approach and actually tried to establish footholds in Africa and North America in colonial terms? They did settle, but more as immigrants, than conquerors. They weren't exploiters.This is strange to a Western mind; but in a sense it is a dilemma where our world still sits. How not to treat foreign lands as markets but instead, respect their traditions and cultures as a means to enrich one aesthetically? The Chinese didn't go to Europe--though they could've--because they knew through their connections in the Middle East that at the time, they had nothing to offer. So, they stayed away.
Zheng's explorations unfortuantely became anathema to the state.
The Ming Dynasty was turned out, the Confucianists came in and China made even owning a ship with a mast a crime punishable by death.
Gavin Menzies in his recent "1421 The Year China Discovered The World" argues that during a two-year odyssey he found Australia and the west coast of North America.
"'[Menzies] said: "The Chinese set up settlements all along the west coast of North America, from Vancouver Island to New Mexico and inter-married happily with the local Indians.
"When the first Spanish colonialists arrived in the 16th
century they found many Chinese, as well as wrecked junks.
"But the diseases the European colonists brought with
them wiped out 90% of the Indians, and destroyed the Chinese influence."

"During his 28 year naval career, Admiral Zheng visited 37 countries, traveled around the tip of Africa into the Atlantic Ocean and commanded a single fleet whose numbers surpassed the combined fleets of all Europe.
Between 1405 and 1433, at least 317 ships and 37,000 men were under his command.
The flagship of the fleet was a nine-masted vessel measuring 440 feet, nearly 1.5 times the length of a football fields. Traveling
with him was Sanbao who created a set of 24 maps praised for their accuracy. Zheng's journeys also stimulated a number of important maritime inventions, including central rudders, watertight compartments and various new types of sails. Perhaps more importantly, his voyages
demonstrated the power of the Chinese civilization and yielded many important liasons between China and other nations."

? - 14/07/2003, Sophie Li,
Shanghaigo to ocean vs go to hell?
it's true that Shanghai was called Song Jiang county a long time ago. However, 2ye, I have a different concept with you. If you don't mind, i'd like to point it out. Why not call it concession instead of colony?

shanghai means - 14/07/2003, 2ye Bao,
ChinaTwo hundred years ago, shanghai is a little fishing vallage. Many fisher man lived there. It was goverened my Song Jiang County.
After the Opium war, Shanghai was rented as a colony by western countries. Because its location near the pacitic ocean, chinese name it shanghai, means go to the ocean. Similar to the western word---go to the hell.